GEAR OF THE YEAR 2019
2019 was a fantastic year for music production gear. So much so that we have had to up the number of categories in our regular Gear Of The Year Awards to 14. We now have everything from the Best Accessory to Best Soft Synth and you've been voting in your droves for the winners over the past few weeks. Over the following pages we reveal the results and in each of the various categories there is an overall winner plus a highly commended runner up. Our final category includes the specially public voted winner of your favourite hardware and software of 2019. So without further ado, welcome to the best gear of 2019. Ladies and gentlemen, raise your glasses…
Best Accessory
WINNER
LOOPMASTERS LOOPCLOUD 5
FREE TO £17.99/MONTH
Contact loopcloud.com
Looplcloud is the ultimate way that you can select and interact with samples – both millions from Loopmasters own roster and also, now, from your own collection. It has had many fast and dramatic updates, but version 5 saw the addition of some superb and imaginative features which push the application further into creative DAW territory than ever before. In fact, it even has its own multitrack recording feature that allows you to put together sketchpad ideas quicker than you might believe. There are also effects and a couple of instruments, but the real fun is to be had in the sample editing side of the software where you can create incredibly complex patterns and rhythmic ideas either using a single sample or longer sections of audio.
You can get into Loopcloud for free or with three levels of subscription. The free version gets you the software and you get five free sounds a day to download. The Artist subscription is £5.99/month; Studio costs £9.99 and Professional £17.99. The more you pay, the more free samples you get per day and cloud storage: up to 50 samples a day and 250GB of storage on the Professional sub, for example.
With version 5, Loopcloud has come of age. In our review, we said: “The bottom line is with each upgrade – and especially this one – Loopcloud is getting more creative with your audio. What was the master of sample management is fast becoming the fastest and most inspirational block-busting writer’s tool out there.”
HIGHLY COMMENDED
AUDIENT NERO
£375
Contact audient.com
Audient has long been regarded as one of the real industry leaders when it comes to mixing consoles and interfacing, however the company’s attention to quality is still evident across their other products, the Nero is a tactile monitor controller that replicates the monitor sections of vintage mixing consoles and presents them in a desktop studio form. Its remarkably well built and has solid buttons, knobs and digital inputs that support up to 192kHz/24-bit signals.
In our review, Adam Crute said “Nero comes in a chunky, solidly built black enclosure that’s perfectly sized to sit alongside your computer keyboard or DAW controller. The device’s controls all live on the top surface of the enclosure, which is angled so that the controls are tilted towards you, as they would be on a large-format mixing console. It’s a well-built monitor controller that’s just like the monitor section of a mixing console”
Best Outboard
WINNER
BLACK LION AUDIO SEVENTEEN
£699
Contact blacklionaudio.com/scvdistribution.co.uk
When it comes to classic studio outboard like 1176, there have been plenty of remakes and clones over recent years. This versatile solid-state compressor/limiter can be used
